


ACOWAR Chapters 24-25: A Retelling

by illyriantremors



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: ACOWAR rewrite, Canon Divergent, F/M, LOTS OF ANGST AND PAIN AND PROBLEMS OKAY, Rhys POV, Spoiler alert: Keir dies, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 08:30:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14911983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illyriantremors/pseuds/illyriantremors
Summary: Rhys POV of the Hewn City scenes from ACOWAR, except this time, the gang goes to the mountain with very different intentions and a VERY different outcome that results in lots of angst for Mor and lots of death for Keir.





	1. Confusion

**Author's Note:**

> *Trigger Warnings* for abuse, violence, and graphic displays of torture.
> 
> This is straight up, no shame, no excuses, my "eff you to the moon and back SJM" rewrite of the Hewn City scenes from ACOWAR. I was absolutely disgusted at how Sarah chose to treat Mor in ACOWAR, how she threw her to the wolves with no regard for her character or the story, and how in doing so, she destroyed the credibility of the entire inner circle as a family of trust and unconditional love.
> 
> In particular, these scenes upset me the most. I've wanted to re-write them for some time. This is how *I* not so humbly would have preferred those chapters to go. There is lots of torture. Lots of angst. And lotsssssss of Moriel and I honestly give zero fucks.
> 
> Enjoy. >:)

“Tea?”

I turned at the soft sound of my mate’s voice offering Mor the delicate cup she held in her hand. Mor brushed her hair back from her face. Eyes wide from the hole she’d been staring into the clean wooden floors of my apartment, she swallowed before accepting the drink. “Is there any-”

“Here.” Cassian appeared from behind Feyre, strolling after her out of the kitchen, and pushed a tiny bottle of honey into my cousin’s hand. A weak smile forced itself on her lips.

“Thanks, Cass,” Mor said and shot a consider dollop into the cup. We watched quietly as she drank, unmoving until she’d swallowed and declared it a successful brew - by Feyre’s pitiful standards anyway.

I retained a brief smirk and resumed my watch of the skies from the porch doorway that had been held open for no less than five hours now. Watching - and waiting.

Waiting for the news to come.

Looking heavenward, the clouds had gathered thick in a dark grey clump that was festering. Cauldron, Mother… whomever or whatever. The skies spelt the news I waited for before I spotted the dark blur of movement swimming on the wind toward us with fate in his hands.

The rise in my chest brought the others to an alert stillness moments before Azriel landed in the gardenway, shadows clinging darkly about his face. His considerable gaze told me everything before the first broken promises came forth.

“Well?” I asked. Azriel’s hazel eyes were unyielding as he merely nodded.

I forced my hands in my pockets, sensing Feyre behind me taking a seat near Mor, her mind oozing a sick sort of feeling. I echoed the sentiment. None of us wanted where we knew we were all going next.

When at last I turned to where Azriel’s gaze had already long departed for, my cousin was blandly stirring her tea, lips pursed.

Cassian flexed his grip as he stared at Mor, his knuckles and bones cracking back and forth. He stood tall, looming large in the room and I could see the muscles rippling beneath his skin even from beneath the thick fabric of his flying leathers. Muscles that were already yearning to rip beneath that cursed mountain Azriel had come from where he could unleash his body upon them all.

But for now, my brother simply stared. Stared at Mor as we all did.

“Be done with it,” Amren’s brusk tone clipped at us. My head fell as I rubbed the back of my neck. Outside, I could feel a pulse of wind rustle through Velaris waiting for the first build toward the climax. Would the thunder come before the lightning this time, perhaps?

I crossed the room in quick strides. Feyre scooted herself delicately away from Mor as I approached and knelt before my cousin. Setting aside the teacup and taking her hands in mine, I blew out a rough breath, my stomach grown in knots. Her hands were cold. Cold and pale, but they did not tremble. Not once.

“Morrigan,” I said and finally Mor looked up at me, her brown eyes dark. “I need to ask you something. Ask something  _ of _ you.”

She blinked, her only tell of the emotion building inside her that I wished to crack open and save from the world. “I know,” she said.

“And it’s your choice.”

“I know.”

“ _ Entirely _ , your choice, Mor.” She frowned, fighting me to the bitter end. But careful to measure the weight of every word I spoke. My voice dropped. “If you say no - and by the Cauldron I’ll understand if you do - then it’s done, and I’ll find another way.”

“We’ll find another way, you mean,” Cassian said, interrupting us.

He stood next to Azriel in the doorway now. I had not seen him move. Even all these years later, my instincts fought the declaration, that anyone else should make a sacrifice on my behalf. It was intolerable and my blood, that which my ancestors and the High Lords of this court shared, cried out in denial. But I nodded gravely at his gaze, hard and steady toward me, not letting me forget each of our places in all of this. When death came calling, we would march into the inferno to fight it together.

“ _ We _ will find another way,” I said. My tongue tasted the words bitterly. “But I don’t doubt that you already understand how much easier this would make things if you acquiesce.”

“Rhys-”

I cut Az off. He could be pissed at me later. This was as far as I’d push her anyway and there was no sense denying the truth. We already knew what her answer would be as it was. “It would. You know it would and Mor - I don’t just mean for the war.”

Mor held my gaze for as long as she dared and in that moment, I felt nearly 600 years of history pass between our eyes: sliding down banisters as children, taking turns besting each other at sparring before my mother dumped me in the Illyrian pits, the day she ran into my arms with that zealous grin on her face when I came to take her north into the camps for the first time…

Pure. My cousin was pure. She’d seen atrocities countless times over her life and yet, she continued to be the one saving my skin century after century.

_ Say yes _ , a desperate piece of my heart pleaded, even though I already knew she would. She’d do it for the court. She’d do it because she loved me when I deserved so little of the sentiment form her. But watching the flash of fear and desire in her eyes at the idea of freedom, I wanted her to say yes for herself just as much as the rest of us.

Guilt stabbed me in the heart as she hesitated. Had I been cruel to appoint her over the Hewn City even if she walked in with a crown on her head? Had I been mistaken to think she would want to face down the family that had spurned her so brutally years ago nearly every day of her life? Had I taken away her freedom in offering her Velaris?

_ Say yes, _ I hoped. Hoped as desperately as I had hoped for Feyre once upon a dream.  _ Let me love you now the last way I know how. _

I was and would always be a selfish High Lord.

A tender caress settled against the gateway to my mind, but I didn’t dare look at Feyre lest the mist pooling behind my eyes actually rain down.  _ I’m proud of you _ , Feyre said before retreating. 

Just as I felt my pulse quicken and my body tighten in anticipation, Mor looked up from our hands and squeezed my grasp. “Okay,” her red lips breathed, firm and solid and… ready. She looked away before I could discover more and it unsettled me.

“Then let’s get to it,” Amren said. “No sense waiting for the war to be over before we finally figure out you all have  _ feelings _ about things.”

“By the Cauldron, Amren, I swear-”

“You swear what, Cassian?” I didn’t have to look to know that Amren’s silver orbs would be razor sharp and that Cass’s exasperation would be genuine. Mor and I exchanged a breathy chuckle that loosened us both up, and when I stood, Feyre kissed my cheek. It was enough to allow my feet to find their ground.

We arranged ourselves into a ring and sorted out all the details, though Azriel mostly leaned against one wall in his usual brood and I couldn’t refrain from pacing here and there. The movement helped my mind manage all of the potential outcomes - and there were many.

Which was why it took us the greater part of the evening to figure out how we would approach the wretched court under the mountain.

“You’ll have to alert Keir,” I said pointedly to Mor. “Make it urgent.”

“We’ll still have to wait a day at least.”

“No, we go tomorrow.” She opened her mouth to argue, but I pressed on. “I don’t care if it’s noon time tomorrow when he gets the news. We’re going by the afternoon. This is war and we need the Darkbringers. The more desperate we seem, the more likely we are to gleen a true reaction from him. And we need that more than anything right now if we want to stand a fighting chance of making this a success.”

“I still don’t understand why we can’t just march straight up to Keir and put him in his place. Just get it over with.” Cassian crossed his arms from the open-backed chair he sat squarely in and scowled at me, not a challenge to my tactics, but only pure, unbridled anger ready to begin its quest. “It’s not like we haven’t been waiting long enough for this.”

Mor looked up sharply at him, but didn’t deny it.

Azriel brought Cass carefully back into the reality of the discussion. “We need legitimacy. That’s the only way this works. That’s why Rhys has been talking to shop owners, forewarning the city of what’s to come.”

“It’s the only way,” Mor said, picking up the shared kettle that had been sat on the table between us and pouring her third cup of the evening. “We need the Darkbringers.”

_ And what role am I to play this time? _

Unsure what exactly it was about my mate that struck me so in that moment hearing her voice float across my mind and kiss my aches, I looked at Feyre and felt relief for the first time that day. She seemed calm. Prepared. And once more that genuine curiosity of her new life lured me into an admiring stillness of her character.

“You are to be High Lady,” I said aloud, not bothering to hide the truth from anyone. “Nothing more, nothing less. And dare I say, the sight alone of you taking my throne might be enough to save us the dirty work and finish them all off.”

Cassian snorted and leaned back. “If only.”

Feyre didn’t so much as blink as she reached for her own cup of tea with only a few sips remaining. A few sips that I gently warmed before they reached her lips. That cup had sat quite some time since we began. “Are the Darkbringers really that valuable?” she asked. “I mean, I don’t doubt they must be powerful if we’re going to such…” she glanced cautiously at Mor, “lengths to retrieve them. But can one small unit really make that big of a difference? Against Hybern and his armies?”

“Yes,” Cassian said, the general’s voice resuming command as he leveled his gaze at Feyre for instruction. “In a war like this - absolutely. Every single body on the field makes a difference. And the Darkbringers are no ordinary footsoldier.”

“They wield an intense amount of power,” Az said from his position against the wall. “Power that may not  _ win _ the war, necessarily, but could easily claim victory over a number of battles.”

Between the shadows guarding - or perhaps conspiring - against his face, I saw history flash in Azriel’s eyes. And I wondered as he looked to Mor if we were both asking ourselves the same thing about what that history would become in the upcoming war should our mission in the Hewn City prove successful the following afternoon.

I turned in time to briefly see Mor offer Az a wicked smile ghosting her lips before it was gone and she’d turned to Feyre. Excitement coursed through me. The horrors and atrocities of war… and the honor and privilege it was to serve with my family at my side.

“The Darkbringers have been under my family’s control for millennia,” Mor explained. “They wield skills and weaponry that lie at the heart of what our powers represent.”

Feyre slowly nodded. “And what kind of power exactly is that?”

I was about to reply when Mor shoved a hand over my face. “Oh no - don’t!” A gleam sparked in her eye that brought me back to the smile she’d briefly gifted Az. “Don’t spoil it. I want to  _ show _ her.” Feyre arched a brow as Mor smugly brought the tea back to her lips.

_ Good, _ I thought. _ Let her build some excitement _ .

Hopefully, it would distract her long enough to get us through the next day intact.

* * *

Cassian flew me back to the House. I’d quickly composed the letter to my father and sent it off before declaring we all needed to turn in. Hilarious really to think any of us would sleep much.

I hated flying through cold weather like what we flew through then. It felt like being cheated. Something so glorious turned into a nasty trick. The first time I ever flew… my stomach had warmed and my cheeks had burned practically feeling the weight of the sun as it had touched my skin while Az had held me up and taken me across the valleys and peaks of the Illyrian mountains.

Flying. After years in the darkness. What glorious freedom it was for us both that day. And all the days that followed, really.

“Hmm?”

I scowled, turning my face into Cass’s chest to avoid the chill. “Hmm yourself.”

“You had a look.” I stilled waiting, wondering what he might be guessing at. “Are you worried? About what he’s making you-”

“He’s not making me do anything,” I clarified. “And of course I’m worried. We all are.”

Even flying, holding me up, I could feel his chest deflate in a disgruntled sigh. “You know what I mean.” I hated that he could read me so easily.

“I’ll be fine, Cass.” When he didn’t say anything, I looked up tentatively to see him watching me carefully, no regard for the wicked wind flitting about us or the little drops of rain that threatened to worsen our trip. “Really really.”

“Nesta’s going,” he said suddenly. “Amren insists on it.”

“Amren? Or your-”

“Don’t say it,” he said, his brow pinching together. But there was a hint of something more, too. Exasperation or... perhaps he was unsettled. Unsettled at the first thing in his life he didn’t know how to plan for.

I held a hand up to his face, knowing we were near landing, and ran a thumb through the scruff on his face that had come in the last few days. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Fuck off, Mor.”

“With pleasure,” I said, ensuring the words rolled off in our usual playful way, but sure and steady as well so that Nesta would be the only thing he went to bed panicking over. There was no need to add my weight to Cassian’s back again - literal or otherwise. I made sure to carry it with me - just me - as I stepped out of his hold and walked swiftly for my room without another word. If I waited a second longer, I might have revealed truths of my own I wasn’t ready to face.

And besides, I needed to focus. I stared at my hands remembering how they had changed the last time the winds had swept me up and the light had poured forth in a blaze that ignited the battle fields.

So many dead…

I shook my head.

My room was freezing as I stepped inside, the balcony doors left wide open as I preferred them, even in the bitterest of storms. Sometimes when the thunder rattled the walls and the howling startled me from sleep, I’d get up and try to force them shut. But my fingers always failed to do more than grip the handles.

Even the worst nights outside trying to creep within were better than the stifling feeling of being locked back inside with no way out.

I practically ran to my closet chased by the storm brewing outside and shed my clothes, throwing a forgotten shirt and sweater over myself that were way too large for me, but that smelt of cedar and warmth. I leaned back against the door and inhaled that scent at my wrists wishing it were closer. The thought dragged me down toward the floor and instantly I melted.

What if I lost this? What if everything we planned for was a mistake? What if offering up Velaris on a silver platter to my father was exactly what he anticipated - wanted even? What if I could never have a moment like this again to sit in my own space and just  _ breathe _ in all that I loved most?

I opened my eyes, vaguely aware that I’d even closed them, and stared into the dim light of the room. Slowly, achingly, the cold from outside crept under the sliver beneath the door and met my bare legs. At once, my skin and soul erupted into goosebumps and I began to shake.

_ It’s coming _ , I told myself, hoping the foreknowledge of my mind’s descent into hell would save me from shattering at some point in the night. I couldn’t have stopped it had I tried.

Visions of what was to come for worse or for better flashed through my mind - and not just of what ill fate we might meet with Keir, but how horribly wrong it could go after. Bodies piled high of our wounded and dead, wings protruding from the earth in ungodly shapes as they had in the last war, my family dead and gone…

My fingers crawled into my hair and scraped along my scalp as I forced my eyes shut this time. But the visions pressed on there.

Cassian’s horrid screams as his wings shred…

Rhys flailing on the cold stone floor as he felt the bond ripped apart at the seems, as he lost his mate…

And the scream inside my own chest as I watched that arrow fly hard and true through Azriel’s chest. All that blood…

A resounding boom sounded somewhere close enough to rattle my bones and I shouted into the darkness. “No!” And then I was on my feet making to run, flinging the door open wide.

Breathe. I couldn’t  _ breathe _ anymore. I needed to just breathe.

If we failed, if any of them died because of something that happened tomorrow, it would be all my fault…

The door hit the wall with a loud  _ whack  _ as I tossed it open and shouted once more, ready to topple over. Except, I didn’t.

“Morrigan -  _ hey _ ,” and that was all I needed to hear.

Looking up, Azriel’s mere gaze as he landed on my balcony kept me from falling. A light sheen graced his brow only partly clouded over with shadow, due more to the effort of flying than any rain that had yet to fall, I imagined.

But it was his eyes that held me upright. No army of shadows could have kept me from seeing the truth those hazel depths held as he looked at me, undoubtedly a stupid, shaking mess in his old sweater, naked from the waist down save for my underwear.

I held a hand up and barely made it a few inches into the air before I shook again. He crossed the room in three swift strides.

Clutching at the straps of his leathers, he pulled me into his arms. My fingers dug in brutally trying to find purchase digging for something more than just the rough, beaten fabric separating us. Craving not so much the skin held underneath, but the heart of him. Inside my chest, my heart hammered. I no longer felt my feet.

“Air,” I gasped into his chest. “Az, I need-”

He lifted me before I could even get the thought across and took me onto the open balcony where the sky above us was impossibly gray. Setting me down, he quickly fetched a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around me so that it fell to the floor and provided some small degree of warmth. I’d never felt more idiotic for my fashion choices than I did just then.

But then I felt… him. Just him. Just Azriel, wrapping his steady arms around me inside that blanket, his hands holding me up at the waist. He was the most solid, real thing I had ever touched.

I slid my arms up around his neck and buried myself into him, fighting so tremendously not to give in to the emotion that was bursting at my chest to get out and be wild and free in his embrace.

Instead, I sighed and cherished the warmth I found waiting for me. Everyone always assumed Cassian was the warm one and in many ways he was. Cassian’s warmth was nearly always tangible. But that didn’t mean Azriel’s was nonexistent. His was merely patient, waiting to be wanted.

And I wanted that warmth just then. Craved it to the depths of my soul. Since the moment he’d first woken after the aftermath with Hybern it seemed as though Azriel and I were always touching somehow. We had lain together for hours as his body learned to heal and after it finally had, we just carried on as if the physical intimacy was what we had been doing all along. Brief touches here and there, embraces that lingered after our respective scouting missions for the war, holding hands whenever we needed the reassurance not minding who was lingering nearby.

And always he stayed the night. The others may not have realized it fully by now, though I suspected Cassian had an idea, but Azriel stayed with me nearly every night now. We’d lie awake just talking, spilling our truths about the past and the future, until I’d fall asleep and then so too would he.

And now we were here barred from the simple joy of relaxing into the truth shared between us - the truth we had been building to for so long. Instead, fear stood in the way.

I hated that fear to the depths of hell and back. Hated that it stole everything I wanted away from me only to dangle it before my eyes and say  _ no _ .

“What if I can’t do it?” I asked and raised my gaze to his.

“It’s never been a question of what you can or can’t do, Morrigan,” Az breathed, his face inches from mine. “You know this.”

I did. Which meant the real question was whether or not I would.

“I’d do anything for my court,” I replied.

Az’s lips made a shrug. “Then you’ll be fine.”

“How can you be so casual about this,” I asked, my hand fisting on his leathers. I hated him for it sometimes - all that stupid, perfect self-control and preparedness none of us had. “How can you have so much… so much faith that this will work?”

Two rough hands cradled my face lifting it to his. “Because you will be with me,” Az whispered. “We all will.”

We came within a breath of reaching each other and I nearly thought the moment had come that we might meet… if not for the drops of rain that finally sprang to life and pelted us from above. I shivered, jumping back and staring daggers up at the sky for cursing me so much within a day. Az didn’t remove his gaze from me.

“I’m going to need your help tomorrow,” I said quietly. “Everyone’s help really, but Az… Azriel.” I studied the slowly dampening hair around his face and neck, now showing the first signs of curl as it moistened. Noticed the deep brown of his skin that radiated warmth despite the cold. And took safety in the way even his shadows dared not disturb us in that moment. I swallowed, “Will you help me to do it? Will  _ you _ do it if it comes to that miserable end?”

“Morrigan, I-”

“If it’s too much, just tell me-”

“Never,” he said, shaking his head and reaffirming those hands cradling my face. “Nothing is ever too much.”

Rain or tears, I couldn’t tell anymore what ran down my face as the heavens cried more furiously. “How do you know that? How can you believe that? I’m asking a lot of you.” And just to give extra truth to my words, I glanced down to eye the jeweled hilt of Truth-Teller sitting at his waist.

Az stared into my eyes and in that moment, I felt him bare his soul, all the little parts of him he’d never let even me see. And I realized how ready he truly was for this moment. After all this time. It made my bones turn to dust and my knees weak with anticipation.

“I  _ know _ ,” he said, “because it is as I said before. Anything would be okay so long as I am with you. And I would follow you anywhere.”

And then he leaned forward and pressed a lingering kiss to my forehead, one that stamped the promise across my skin and would never fade away.

“My  _ love _ ,” he whispered, before the cruel wind snatched it away. But I reached out with my heart and stole it back, guarding the words deep inside me as Az ran his fingers through my hair and simply  _ breathed _ life into the shattered and broken pieces of me.

My eyes fell shut. And gently, I found myself quieting and pressing his kiss seeking the shelter he provided.

Az pulled me into him and held me against the storm. “Anywhere, love,” he whispered against my ear. Over his shoulder, I raised my head to the sky and took a deep breath.


	2. Submission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Trigger warnings* for abuse.

Keir strode with purpose toward the underground meeting chambers. Too much of an outright strut, really.

That worried me.

Putting Feyre on my throne in front of the entire court had been meant to destabilize Keir, show me exactly where his meager little headspace was at. For once, he hadn’t balked. Oh he was shocked to be sure, seeing Feyre settle in with ease between the twin serpents that he probably crowned himself under when none were looking.

Perhaps that was my mistake. Perhaps my attempt at coolness as I had pitched myself upon the armrest was too easily mistaken for apathy in Keir’s eyes. Where I was witnessing a queen rise to power in front on an entire wicked people, Keir was seeing something else.

Disgust. I watched it fill his eyes when he realized what Feyre made to do. Slowly the surprise filtered out and his eyes had grown dark and vile, the animal inside no more than a vulture longing to circle overhead and wait.

Had my gaze not been trained so wholly on Keir, I would have watched the others. Feyre showed me glimpses here and there as she saw fit. I knew as soon as Keir wiped the disdain from his face and held his head high that the crowd’s more fitting horror would be the only pleasurable amusement I’d receive for the remainder of the day regardless of how our impending exchange played out.

That, and seeing the cretin kneel before my lady. The twin serpents were no longer separate at our backs then, but winding between us - inside us - in glee as Keir’s crooked knee hit the cold, stone floor.

I should have walked on ahead of him, made Keir go last as was his place. The fact that he took up the position so easily without even checking my approval first was further discomfort that our fate was already sealed.

He kicked open the heavy door to our chambers, fashioned thick for silence and privacy, with an easy grace about him.

I cringed inwardly, the rage already kindling. Feyre shot me a look of concern.

Behind us, Cassian followed Mor into the room, their stony faces mirroring the icy temperatures greeting us in unwelcome. Mor took the seat furthest from her father, the white dress she’d chosen cutting deep over the chair as it dripped like ripples upon a lake towards the floor. She stared straight ahead, never once facing him.

“Well?” Keir asked sitting back casually in his seat. My gaze poured over him and saw the parallel to my own earlier posture on the throne reflected back at me. The corners of his lips twitched.

A horrid, piercing screech filled the room. Cassian slowly dragged the chair nearest Keir’s position back, forcing even the lush style of the unit to scrape painfully across the stone before he snapped the backing clean off to accommodate his figure. He fell into the seat with no grace, kicked his feet up on the table, and watched Keir carefully, who did little more than give Cassian an unkind once over.

“I know why you’re here,” Keir said, returning his attentions to myself. Feyre went entirely unnoticed by him and the snake inside me hissed at the slight. “Get on with it then, Rhysand.”

A cloud of darkness drowned out his form, swallowing him whole. My anger possessed me. Where I had been calm enough to deal with his various forms of unpleasantness, I no longer desired such control.

An initial skirmish suggested Keir struggled against the grip taken hold over his mind, but it quickly settled. A small smile seemed to toy with the idea of appearing on Cassian’s lips.

Briefly the smoke cleared and I arched a single brow as if to ask him what the matter could possibly be. And there it was again written in his starless eyes - the disgust.

“My  _ Lord _ ,” he choked, but it was spat out with venom all the same. The smoke persisted and Keir’s eyes widened at his continued lack of control.

“Do you think that’s long enough, my High Lady,” I said and relished the look of horror as Keir’s gaze slid to his true tormentor. I gave it my cruellest smile.

“Not quite,” Feyre said, her face masking whatever she felt. Regardless, the smoke died and I sensed Keir return to himself. “But all the same, I suppose war is more important business to attend to.”

Keir’s entire frame shook with the stiffest of movement as he righted himself in the seat. I briefly glanced at Mor, but her face was dead to us all. I reached out, just a mere wisp of a thought or feeling, but she froze me out immediately. My fingers drummed once against the table.

_ It’s a mask _ , I reminded myself.  _ Nothing more. Nothing less _ .

“Get to it then,” Keir said.

“Do we need to repeat the lesson so soon,” Cassian asked, leaning forward.

“Yes, yes - my lord, my lord,  _ my lord _ .” Keir sneered at Cassian and I knew as he looked at the massive wings looming behind my brother what he so desired to do in that moment. “I do believe whose head the crown currently resides with is apparent.”

Singular.

_ The _ crown.

A snarl built up in my chest pushing toward my throat and I hated that it wasn’t entirely mine. That some pulse of magic I was always so terrible at fighting controlled it.

_ Relax _ .

Feyre didn’t look at me, but her voice was a balm all the same.

_ Relax, Rhys. Your mate is settled. And so should you be, too. _

Stars flashed behind my eyes, and I indulged the darkness forward to blanket me for but a moment. Just enough to recover my senses, light enough that none else but she would even know it.

“If you know what business brings us here, then give us your answer so we might be on our way,” I said coldly. Keir at last dropped the pretenses of amusement.

“For the sake of clarity, I’d prefer you detail your exact needs,” he said.

I stifled my groanings. So be it.

“War with Hybern looms. It is inevitable. My Spymaster counts numbers far greater than what even the seven kingdoms united can hope to defend against. Give me the Darkbringer army that we may defend against the island king to whatever end.”

Keir’s head tilted to the side as he briefly considered. “If war is inevitable and, as your little messenger so claims, what you say of the numbers is true, why bother sacrificing my army? It seems a hopeless cause you beg of me.”

“They are, for all intents and purposes,  _ my _ army, as you will do well to remember.”

“That is not an answer to the question.” Keir’s nose pinched. “And you will do well remember our accords. I control the Darkbringers no matter whose territory they reside under, seven kingdoms or otherwise.”

My gut roiled at his turn of phrase, the implications so much clearer than I assumed he’d be willing to show at this point.

_ Seven kingdoms or otherwise… _

_ He may already have- _

_ That’s what I feared. _

Mor’s chest rose with a steady gait.

“You’re right,” Feyre said. Keir’s visage snapped wide in surprise at that and finally, he gave my mate a proper greeting. “Many will be lost in the battles to come. Including many of your Darkbringers when they fight. We can sit here and fill your ears with pleasantries of fighting against what is evil to save what we love all you like. Or, as I sense your all-too-presumptious ass would prefer, we can cut to the chase.”

I watched in horror as Keir surprise morphed into a more… entertained appraisal. “Which is?” he asked, his voice a serpent of its own.

_ Whore _ . He’d called her a whore when last he’d seen her. One that now I was certain he would not refuse services from if offered.

Had Feyre not pressed on, I would have infiltrated his mind and cut through every blood vessel and memory and thought until I’d learned exactly what he would have of her.

_ Stasis _ . My hand clenched briefly once before passing the gesture off a mere indifferent scratch upon the table.  _ Stasis, Rhysand. _

“That your men and women will die anyway. All of them inside this mountain. Make no mistake that just as you are evil, Hybern is an entirely different breed of the species. Should he win, he will take down this wretched mountain and all who keep to it. The best we can hope for then is to try and fight against him if you wish not to fall trapped beneath his boot when all is said and done here, don’t you think?”

Keir stared for a long moment at Feyre contemplating her words, the ones that said he was condemned to die before Hybern no matter which alliances he kept.

A small kernel of hope tugged unfairly at me. I couldn’t help it.

Listening to Feyre had always meant… hope. A future. I wanted to believe her because believing in her had saved me once. And though Keir was wicked in every way imaginable, I wanted that hope to bewitch him as it had me. I wanted him to see the reason behind her words and accept it. I wanted our game to end quietly, simply for once, without the preamble I’d come to expect.

_ Let it be easy, _ I prayed.  _ Just this once. _

And as expected, I was failed to every possible degree.

“Your High Lady has asked you a question,” Cassian said, the muscles of his forearms rippling with a silent promise. “I suggest you answer her promptly.”

Keir gave Feyre a mere second longer before sliding his attentions back to myself. Cassian’s nostrils flared. “I think… that if I am to be killed by Hybern inside this rock  at the end of a long and bloody war that will cost me much and gain me… nothing, as you say, then perhaps I should get out and enjoy the sunshine instead whilst I number my days.”

The air in the room went stale. I tasted ash as Keir’s words reached my ears and permeated my senses. All of my previous aggression and dread shifted from what threatened my mate to what now threatened my family.

This was real. It was truly to happen. Deep within me, a mourning commenced.

Mor was no longer to be found staring anywhere but at the seat farthest away from her own. Instead, I caught her staring at Keir, watching the cold, malicious joy gleam in his eyes and promise to ruin her for once and for all. Her eyes glistened back, and slowly, her lower lip began to waver.

The silence became unbearable, a weight we could all feel. All except for Keir who seemed to suddenly be enjoying himself once more.

“You would galavant across all of Prythian while your brothers and sisters alike are slaughtered?” I asked carefully, still praying to the Mother there was a chance Keir wouldn’t force our hand.

“Of course not,” Keir said. “Traveling Prythian’s numerous and varied haunts holds little interest for me. A particular city of starlight, however…”

A choked noise gasped out of Mor. Had Feyre not had her own mask to maintain, I imagined the feeling of longing tugging at us both would have led her straight to my cousin. I regretted instantly then that we had agreed upon Cassian accompanying us to the chambers instead of my brother who was now somewhere about these very walls deep in the mountain.

“What precisely are you saying, Keir,” I asked.

“And do choose your words  _ very _ carefully,” Cassian added, his giant hands now fists upon the table before them both that would damage much more than Keir’s body if allowed.

Keir merely curled viciously throughout - in his smile, in his eyes, and in his soul. “You have a hidden city,” he said. “And I want access to it.”

“Absolutely not,” Mor sneered, voice a flutter of insult and injury. I wanted to lurch forward and stop the first tear from falling, but she guarded herself closely. My stomach tightened, dreading every single moment of the fall as I stepped forward off the cliff alone, no wings in sight to save me from the landing.

“You wish to enter Velaris,” I said simply. Keir nodded. “You cannot merely content yourself to burrow out of this rock your own crevices and holes, balconies and landings, and see the stars yourself from a distance?”

_ A mask. It’s a mask. Simply a mask. _

Keir shrugged. “I like to keep a tight leash on matters, as you I’m sure are familiar, being so adept at the process.”

“And in exchange... you would command the Darkbringers to fight against Hybern the moment I call upon them?”

Mor’s head whipped in my direction, her lips tight as she gaped at me. And there - there I fell to my death. “You’re not actually considering this are you?” she demanded, mustering what outrage and grief she could.

Keir watched Mor carefully from the corner of his eyes, but made no move to reveal his skepticism or otherwise. I took it at face value. “Yes,” Keir said. “Give me Velaris and I will give you your war.”

“No,” Mor said. Her body began to shake, but I continued right on falling, falling, falling.

“It’s done.”

I watched as though in slow motion as my cousin flew out of her seat facing me and me alone. “Rhys,” she breathed and her words shook as the mountain itself had the day she was truly born of her heritage. “You can’t…”

_ A mask a mask a mask A MASK. _

Never had she shown so much open, raw emotion before her father in these halls. Never had she  _ defied _ me before him.

Always she was dutiful and cruel and merciless as I when we came here. Always she would convey the fear Keir and the lot of them were to feel in the wake of my comings and goings. But not today.

“My Lord,” Cassian said, his voice measured, “you can’t truly mean to allow these  _ goblins _ entrance to our home.”

“I can and I will.” The words sounded dead in my own ears and Mor collapsed into her chair, still not allowing the tears to pass, but heartbroken all the same. Goosebumps erupted beneath my tunic, causing me to nearly shiver.

_ It will be okay _ , Feyre sent down the bond.  _ She knows the truth. She knows the price of all of this. She will be okay, Rhys _ .

It hardly mattered. I hated to see her cry. I hated every single damned second of being here, dragging her through the mud day after day. When this was over, I decided, I would tear down this entire mountain and never see anything rebuilt in its place.

“We need the army, Cassian,” I said, too cowardly to confront Mor directly. “And it would seem my lowly steward will have nothing else in its place.”

“Not Velaris,” Mor said. I tensed as the same style of disgust that poured from the depths of Keir’s dark eyes now shone through hers. But it wasn’t directed at Feyre who sat silent at my side. It was entirely devoted to me instead. “Anything but Velaris.” Her voice dropped. “He’ll destroy it. You  _ know _ he will.”

_ Just a mask... _

He would. Keir and his filth would destroy the city and then it wouldn’t matter that I had let my court’s greatest secret be known to the entire world. For what Keir would do to it, I would deserve a fate worse than death.

And Mor would be the first to drive the ash arrows into my heart. That was what she felt as we stared at each other. That weight of knowing that I would offer up her haven, her sanctuary, to the very person who had once destroyed her. It mattered not that the truth hiding inside our hearts protected us from such a fate. No, to convince Keir, Mor truly felt that pain in her heart and the weight of it threatened to destroy me.

Never had I so hated the power I held.

I cleared my throat, willing away the vile that begged rise up.

I wished Amren had come, that she were not stuck out in the courts to wherever she’d dragged Nesta off to for “instruction” or whatever excuses she would make.

_ Focus. Focus your mind, and you can focus anything _ .

My stomach sank, the knots still churning over one another, but not quite so tight. Looking at my cousin - my beautiful, wondrous cousin robed in white and still sparkling like the sun as her eyes brimmed with such sorrow - I felt the whorls of darkness cast the mask upon my face and faced the landing at the bottom of that cliff I had flung myself from.

“We all must make sacrifices, Morrigan. That is what war calls of us. As ruler in my place of this court, you will do well remember that.”

“My Lord,” Cassian tried to interject.

“End of discussion,” I said. My voice went taut. Mor and I stared at one another as though seeing a stranger.

“My… my Lady?” Cassian tried. But Feyre was quiet. Dumbfounded at what had happened, appearing to Keir as though she had never suspected it.

Keir laughed in a booming thunder, the monster unleashed. “That’s rather… cute,” he offered Cassian with a pitying shrug. He stood. “Pleasure doing business with you, my  _ Lord _ ,” he said, no longer so opposed to the word now that he could openly mock it. Now that he had what he wanted…

“Dearest,” he said passing Mor. “I so look forward to receiving a tour when I visit.” Mor’s chest shook with a rush of oncoming violence. He didn’t bother with her beyond that. If he didn’t leave soon, she would break.

Pausing in the door, Keir turned back to me a final time.

“I’ll hold you to your word, High Lord,” he said. “When the war is over, I’ll come calling and you will do well to answer lest you see the Darkbringers bring a new war to your doorstep.”

And then the door clicked shut.

A strangled sort of sob cried out of Mor as she started to fall forward. I just caught her before she could reach the floor, my hand going over her mouth. In a cloud around us, Feyre wove a blanket of warmth that soothed and quieted.

_ Wait, wait! _ I pressed into her mind. Cassian and Feyre remained still and silent, just as prepared.  _ Wait for the signal. Only a moment longer, I sweart it. _

Silence reigned and Morrigan shook in my arms trying to nod agreement. I watched tears silently streak her lovely cheeks before slithering over my fingers where they poisoned me with my own betrayals, however false they were.

I studied the air between the four of us, desperate for the moment to come. But it stretched out torturously long, which could only mean Keir was taking his time retreating. When it became unbearable, Feyre pulled me out.

_ Talk to her _ . I looked at my cousin and saw how her eyes had shut, how she shuttered.

_ Morrigan. _

Nothing.

_ Morrigan, please. _ Darkness pooled within my mind and I hoped that she could feel its softness, feel its comfort.

_ Remember the truth, Mor. Remember  _ our _ truth. Nothing’s changed. It’s over _ .

_ Not over yet _ , she replied silently back.

And there, mercifully, I saw it. An angel sent from whatever heaven existed. A streak of black billowed in the air, hanging tight to us for a few lingering seconds. I snatched Mor’s face, turning her toward Azriel’s all clear. And as I released her, she gasped at the air and fell forward onto the table in a sob that choked my heart. The shadow disappeared.

I fell back in my seat.

“Well  _ fuck _ that,” Cassian said.

“Agreed,” I replied stiffly. I ran my hands over my face. Cassian stood, but I held up my hand fearful Mor wouldn’t recover if we bombarded her.

“Mor.” Her hair covered her face completely, but as she continued to shake, I only dared cautiously place a hand to her shoulder. Slowly, her wails quieted. Cassian looked pained and ready to be done with Keir on the spot.

_ Patience, brother _ .

“Stop doing that,” Mor said, resting her brow against a hand. I removed my touch from her shoulder at once afraid even that small gesture had been too much, but her face turned toward me, still not lifting, and she began to wipe the wetness away from her face. “I’m right here, you ass. You can say whatever you want aloud. I won’t be offended.”

My chest fell. Feyre hummed, relieved I hoped. At least, I felt as much down the bond. The warmth continued to lift as Feyre flooded the room with the fire in her spirit and we began to settle.

I leaned forward, elbows resting on my knees. Cassian decided he’d waited long enough and sat next to Mor rubbing up and down her back. A small flicker of gratitude fell shortly on her face.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. I sounded hoarse. Mor’s eyes shone.

“Don’t be. It was necessary to discern where he stood. And now…”

“Now we know,” Cassian said. “He’s gone to Hybern.”

“Do you really think he’s done it already?” Feyre asked. “Undoubtedly he plans to, that much is clear. But are you so sure he’s already traded allegiances? Maybe-”

“A man like Keir has no right to demand of a High Lord whatever he wishes,” Cassian replied. “Accords or no, Rhys could have put his head through a spike and strung it to the gates if he’d liked for being asked to give up Velaris. We need the Darkbringers and that alone is enough to take them, period.”

Feyre sighed, blowing air through her lips. A miserable mood weighed down the air and I felt Mor waiting as her gaze fell to the table. Carefully, I reached out and started moving the hair back from her face. “I’m still sorry,” I whispered. “I hated that you had to go through that whether it was for the truth or not.”

Her eyes flickered to mine and she said nothing. I didn’t mind.

Removing the final piece of hair from her face, I saw that her gaze had caught, not mindlessly on the table as I’d suspected, but on the hand against which her face still rested. Just there curling sweetly from finger to finger, a lone flicker of shadow and darkness, nestled upon her skin as though a glove to shield her from the cold fires of this hell.

Mor saw me watching and softly, she smiled, her face seeming the least bit peaceful at last. I kissed her brow and sat back properly in my chair. It was only mere moments later that Azriel stepped into the room, his watch elsewhere done.

“Is it-” his voice cut off in its tracks at the sight of Mor, her red-rimmed eyes and flushed skin. His hands tightened into fists before the one on his left curled against the hilt of Truth-Teller at his hip.

“Azriel,” and that lone word filled the room as she sat up.

His eyes glistened, brow furrowing with concern. “Are you… Morrigan… I…” Mor’s face softened sweetly. She looked… for once, I couldn’t describe my cousin other than to know that she was something new now. Something entirely new and her own.

Cassian and I caught each other on either side of her. And in that moment as she stood and walked calmly across the room, eyes fixed solely on Azriel who watched her with such worried intention and outright adoration that even he couldn’t master in a moment like this, we both knew.

Mor took his hands in hers and he gripped them back tightly. “My father has defected to Hybern,” she said. Azriel swallowed a lump in his throat and nodded. “I… I’m going to need your help.” Rubbing her lips together, she turned to face the rest of us. “All of your help, if we’re to do this.”

“It’s still your call,” I said. “I’ll find another way if I must.”

Mor shook her head. “You need the army. And I think,” she sighed, and looked back to Azriel, staring down at the hands held between them. “I think I need to be truly free of this finally.”

“Then say the words, and it’s done. In whatever way you chose.”

Mor closed her eyes and stilled for a long, solemn moment. I wondered what she thought of then. Whether she was filled with dread or longing, nostalgia or grief, or something else I would never understand.

But finally, she opened her eyes and allowed a lone hand each to drop in an embrace between them. Mor squared her shoulders back, drew breath, and faced me. “Let’s do it,” she said. “Let’s kill Keir.”


	3. Revelation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Trigger warning* for abuse, torture, and graphic violence.
> 
> Also, Keir dies. Like, I know, who cares, but just in case... major character death and all.
> 
> Also also, if you've read my Shadowsinger fic from lightyears ago, parts of this chapter may be *familiar*

_ Rhys _ .

My mate stood at the doors to throne room considering the stone blocks climbing the walls. A brief glance at her form as she hugged herself in the dim lighting had me stepping back. The scene was… familiar. I had seen her stand there once in grief in a hallway before a throne very much like this one. Too much like it, in fact.

I shuddered, the memory etched so painfully against my lips as I’d taken her in Amarantha’s court after Tamlin had-

No.

Today, I would approach her differently from how I had then.

I leaned against the blocks and stared down at her quietly, waiting. She looked up and though her lips parted, no sound came out.

_ I don’t think I can do this _ .

Disappointment crushed over me, regrettably. I would have liked my mate near for comfort. But the ache was nothing compared to that memory ghosting against my mind.

_ Of course. Amren can take you back, if you wish. _

Sorrow flooded her features, but her body sang with relief as it slumped. And as the redness stung her cheeks, I grabbed her. Gently, this time.

_ It’s alright. You don’t have to do this. _

Why was my life constantly surrounded by so much pain?

_ I know _ , she said and slid closer to my embrace.  _ I just wish… I wish to be part of this _ .

_ But I thought - or so I imagined - this was not something you particularly cared to witness given… _

_ It’s not, but… _ She paused and glanced beyond our position to where Mor stood in a close circle with Cassian and Azriel, the trio talking with hushed voices and stiff frames.

_ You are one of us, Feyre. You are their High Lady. You need not worry about earning their favor anymore, it’s done. _

_ That doesn’t make it any easier to feel like I can’t support all of you, especially Mor. Her face, Rhys. Her face when you said he could have the city… _

My body went cold, forcing my toes to curl within my boots. I had to consciously force my grip not to tighten on her arms as I held her.

_ Morrigan is tougher than you give her credit for. And by the time this is done, she will be stronger than ever. You’ll see in a few days. _

_ A few days? _ Feyre looked up at me warily.

I kissed her softly, a tender kiss this time to replace the horrors still haunting her here.  _ You’ll see. Go with Amren. I would trust no one else more to keep you safe and take you home. _

Feyre looked no more at ease than she had previously. Instead, her frustrations switched to an additional personage who hadn’t stopped staring at us since our conversation began.

_ Why does she want to stay? _

_ Why does your sister do anything? _

In truth, I had no idea why Nesta had insisted she “stay for the show” as she had so brutally put it. But Amren and Mor both agreed it would be a good thing, eye-opening perhaps, for Nesta to remain behind even as Feyre went home. Cassian had been chomping at the bit to throw his two cents in and explain that the action to come would not be the least bit entertaining, but Azriel stole him aside.

_ Keep her safe _ .

_ I will. Nothing will happen to her while she’s with me. I promise. _

_ No offense, but Rhys? _

_ Hmm? _

_ She’s not the one I’m worried about _ .

I flicked her on the nose.  _ Thank you ever so much, darling. Your faith in me is all too reassuring _ .

Feyre gave me a kiss on the cheek before parting to meet with Amren who stood a ways down the hall waiting. They’d leave through a more discreet means. The touch lingered on my skin as I watched her go and begged me wonder what nightmares I’d have to settle when I returned home tonight. I only prayed they wouldn’t be of me and what I’d done to her here. It hadn’t happened before, but-

Nesta cut squarely across me. Her eyes were stone cold, the blue bright and alert and pinning me with a curious judgement I was uncomfortable with here of al places.

“Why stay?” I asked.

Nesta looked me up and down and then over her shoulder to where her sister’s ghost had gone.

“I could ask you the same question, I think.”

“Rhys?” I turned, grateful to not have to go toe-to-toe with Nesta and her words in this wretched place, and found Azriel behind me. Blood called forth in his eyes. “It’s time.”

Cassian made a final adjustment on his leathers. We were all wearing them, except for Mor who had chosen to remain in the ethereal white dress she’d worn all along. It cut down to her navel with slits up to her thighs and was composed of a plain, unadorned fabric save for some seams and boning lining the bodice here and there. I could see why it would unnerve her father, but all the same, it seemed ill fitting for the feud to come.

“You’re sure?”

Mor glowered. It was the most normal I’d seen her since we arrived and I tried to take comfort in that. That and the parting Feyre had left me to cling to. “Shut up, cousin. And lead on before I change my mind and slaughter you first.”

“First, but not instead,” I replied. “Good to know you’ll still get the job done before you take over my throne.”

And where I expected her to stick her tongue out or give me a shove, I suddenly found my cousin and I wrapped up in each other before she quickly pulled away. “Oh let’s just go already,” she said. “I can’t stand the anticipation.”

I gave my brothers a nod and together, they opened the doors to a hell that was about to erupt.

Mor strode in first, head held high and not so much as a drop of forgiveness written on her face. In the white dress, she practically glowed within the room, her own little piece of starlight in a void, black galaxy.

Heads turned to watch her perhaps pondering her purpose and then shifting to myself as I followed, and finally to my brothers behind me. Cassian was dressed to kill, weapons stowed at every spare piece of his leathers. He wanted the spectacle, the blaze of death.

But Azriel had chosen a simpler construction. Only Truth-Teller’s hilt at his hip was obvious. They made a fitting pair, my brothers. Night and day combined to destroy the world.

I brought Nesta in on my arm. I had vowed to keep her safe, so I took her to the side of my throne and let her stand against the cool marble columns. With only a glance to spare lest anyone hear an exchange, however brief and quiet, I asked if she was okay. Her return glare made me smirk.  _ Don’t say we did not warn you _ . 

I stepped back and listened to our stunned audience break into murmurs as Morrigan took my throne.

“Keir!” she snarled. The entire auditorium went silent as the single word reverberated off the chamber walls.

Tense seconds passed and Keir did not acquiesce to the call. Mor closed her eyes and when they opened, tiny beams of light cracked over her pupils as she began slowly uncoiling the lid that kept her powers in check.

_ “KEIR.” _

Her voice was thunderous and echoed through the mountain touching every nook and cranny. None could have escaped that sound. Small pieces of dirt and rock were cast down from the densely packed earth above us, shaken by the noise.

This time, he appeared in an instant.

Keir stood in the center of the court, hands politely clapped behind his back, gaze thoughtful as it passed between where Mor was seated and myself.

“And what is this?” he asked. “Two ladies upon the throne in one day? Are you so weak as to need-”

Whereas I was sure Feyre had been gentler with his mind, I was relentlessly brutal. My talons bore holes into his skull as I latched on to his thoughts, his emotions - what little there were that I could stand to contend with. Keir fell to his knees, clutching his ears as if it were a noise he could block out. So I made a scratch along his mind that would never have a chance to fade.

“She is,” I said, taking a step down from the dias with every turn of phrase, “no longer your daughter.” Keir’s body gave a tremor as he eyed me in confusion. Cassian and Azriel moved forward to meet me at the bottom of the precipice. “She is, in fact, your  _ queen _ . And you will answer her.” I paused in front of him, lifting his head with an actual talon. Keir’s eyes grew wide. “Is that clear?”

Keir remained silent.

My talons shot out to their fullest extent and I seized his neck in a brutal grip. “I said,  _ is that clear? _ ”

Releasing just enough on his mind to allow him to speak, Keir sputtered out a feeble ‘yes’. I let him drop and he grabbed his neck, staring down at his hands that now dripped in blood from where I’d barely knicked the surface of his neck.

“Be grateful,” I said, squatting down to look him straight in the eye, “that that is all the punishment you’re to receive from me this evening.” My face screwed up in a delighted smile, the wicked High Lord returned to torment his subjects. “Or perhaps not. Were it up to me, I’d mist you on the spot and be done with it, but they-” and I grabbed his neck once more.

Keir choked out. “Don’t-”

“ _ They _ ,” and I made sure he saw the Illyrian males behind me that he so despised. Despised, and  _ feared.  _ “They may have other ideas of what to do with you.” I dug my talons in one final time before releasing him for good. “But we shall see. Your queen will decide your fate for you. Answer her wisely.”

I stood and at once, the entire hall scattered. For all that they claimed to delight in their various forms of torture and decay, death and destruction, the creatures of my court did not enjoy it on someone else’s terms. The darkness that had been leaking forth in a trickle now rumbled out of me, chasing and scaring every unfriendly face from the space until only the six of us remained. I laughed callously as I swiped at Keir and retreated.

Nesta watched me with a note of surprise as I climbed back up the dias holding nothing back. She wanted to see what the Court of Nightmares looked like? Then I would gladly show her.

“Majesty,” I said, passing more to stand on the opposite side of the throne. I hitched an elbow up to rest on one of the serpents. “He is all yours.”

I gave a short tug on Keir’s mind as he cowered, still hunched on the floor, so he would be sure to know that, in fact, I wasn’t going anywhere.

“Keir,” Mor said, the word bitter on her tongue. “You kneel before us now accused of high treason to The Night Court and its Lord. How do you plead?”

His gaze flicked one by one through each of us. I heard and felt his breath deliciously quicken. I wanted this. I wanted this  _ badly _ .

And with each passing look, Keir wavered further and further. I pulled sharply on his mind forcing that serpent’s tongue into action. “I know not of what you speak,” he said.

“Cassian,” Mor said and her voice was a void.

Cassian moved forward at a quick pace, Keir’s eyes growing wider with every step. When he was within arm’s reach, I felt Keir reach to pull back, but I didn’t let him move an inch. Cassian grabbed the broadsword at his back out of the sheath and swept Keir up both in one fluid motion until he had him pinned between his chest and the blade, which went straight to his neck.

“Your queen demands an answer,” Cassian spat. “How do you plead?”

Keir’s lips parted, but only terrible sounds came crying out as Cassian dipped his head to whisper in his ear. What he said, I couldn’t discern, but Keir’s body trembled against the muscles pinning him to the blade.

Talons twisting in Keir’s mind, I opened his thoughts up and rifled through them like paperwork. A torrent of fear met me as Cassian spoke, but those words I let be.

Keir saw terrible images. All the things he imagined - or perhaps that Cassian told him? - the blades and straps might do to him. The unthinkable pain that was promised to come… and the pain his daughter had withstood that he would soon know tenfold.

And I encouraged every single one of them. Flooded him until he understood the centuries of anguish running through his blood on the throne. Mor appraised him with an impassive face save for the brief cracklings of light still passing through her eyes here and there.

“Guilty!” Keir cried, already in tatters as Cassian loosened his hold. He fell to floor and scrambled to gather what little of himself he could. He would break quickly, then. “I plead guilty -  _ guilty, guilty, guilty, but I swear I didn’t mean- _ ”

“Didn’t mean to what?” Cassian grabbed a fistful of Keir’s hair and yanked his head back sharply. A new, shorter blade closer in shape and size to a knife was drawn. “Didn’t mean to fuck her over again and again and  _ again _ ?” Keir wailed. And Cassian knelt down, holding the blade in Mor’s direction. A cruel smile contorted his face.

“I fucked her, you know,” he said. Azriel tensed a few feet below me, his head shifting ever so slightly lower while his shadows swarmed in a hive about his entire body waiting for a turn. Even in so much fear as he was, Keir still found it in himself to be insulted. “Yes,” Cassian smiled. “You do remember. And now,” he brought the blade forward to rest on the bridge of Keir’s nose. “Now I’m going to fuck  _ you _ with  _ this _ .”

The foul man’s entire body drained of color. Azriel’s shadows scattered, restless in their waiting.

Cassian stood with a smug expression. I chanced a glance at Nesta, who had lost track of me entirely and was staring at Cassian with a stone cold expression.

Yanking Keir side to side with that fistful of hair, Cassian addressed Mor. “He pleads guilty, your majesty. What shall the punishment be?”

When Mor did not answer straight away, I wondered if she’d suddenly lost her nerve. But every place I looked showed me a woman on the verge of possession, ready for the approaching storm. Light sparked at the corners of her eyes.

“Strip him,” Mor said, her voice still void of inflection, “and then do your worst.” She nestled back into the throne.

Keir’s body flailed as his screams echoed around us. “No, no,  _ NO!” _

Cassian had him naked within seconds, clothes ripped from his body and sprawled about the pristinely clean stone floors. They were caked with blood within minutes as Cassian went to work, starting very promptly with the dagger he had promised.

But the blood abated soon after. Cassian’s forte was in brute strength. While he knew how to make a fae male bleed as easily as the rest of us, he prefered to use his hands. Bones broke beginning with his toes and working slowly up his body, Cassian pausing at each new break to let Keir feel the intensity of the pain. I felt each snap in his mind and with it came vivid images of color - the deep crimson of blood, an endless sea of black, the burgundy stain of his muscles as they twisted and spasmed, and always at the end an indistinguishable blur of white.

What was really a matter of minutes and seconds went on for what felt like hours by the count of Keir’s drawn out cries. Cassian was impatient. He’d wanted this for years, but didn’t have the control to savor it and take his time. With one final snap in Keir’s arm and a less than enthusiastic wimper, Cassian stood and faced Mor. Her knuckles gripping the throne were a stony white.

Mor opened her mouth to speak, but with one final blow to Keir’s face, Cassian cut her off. He righted himself and exhaled sharply, shaking out his shoulders. His neck and back cracked with the effort.

“Well done,” Morrigan said. Cassian nodded and returned to the dias, his knuckles and hands bruising from how hard he’d delivered the blows and breaks.

“Kill me,” Keir whispered into the thin air in front of him where his twisted head faced us. “P-please…”

“You beg for death so soon?” Morrigan asked. He stared at her, his eyes blank. “No,” she said and Keir wailed anew. “I think not. There is yet more for you to know. Tell me, Keir. Now that you are maimed beyond repair, would you like to know what it is to sit and wait wondering if an eternity of pure torment ever ends?”

His head shook violently despite the pain that tremored through his body at the motion.

“It’s a pity really,” Mor continued. “I don’t suppose you’ll ever truly know. No one possibly could. I do not wish to be so intimate with you simply in order for you to know more of a pain you caused. But fortunately for you, there is another who can fill in the gaps.”

Keir’s eyes grew wider than I thought possible as he watched Mor’s focus shift to her right, to the male standing just below me.

“Azriel,” she said and that was all, his name a command and a promise of immense, unyielding torment to follow. Keir cried upon the marble floor. But Azriel turned first toward Mor and knelt. “Rise and go,” she bid him, and so he did.

And it quickly became a wonder to behold.

Azriel knelt over Keir and removed Truth-Teller from his side. This was it. Watching him hold the blade aloft, centuries of waiting came to the brink of chaos before me.

He considered the blade, turning it in hand and admiring the different ways it caught the light. Keir’s mind filled with anticipation the longer Azriel sat in silence hanging the dagger over him. The entire mountain went cold and silent as though listening for the dark Shadowsinger to make his move.

Even I was unsure of what was to come. Azriel was typically quiet and dutiful in his tortures, silent and calculating. But this… this was different. And he’d had near on six centuries to contemplate what this exact moment would be.

“If you think this is going to be over quickly,” Azriel said, finally bothering to look Keir in the eye, “then you are quite mistaken.”

Truth-Teller came down suddenly quick and sharp, stinging Keir’s cheek and cutting it open. And when Azriel spoke, it was with a quiet menace that promised infinite patience. Where Cassian had been fast and brutal, Azriel would be slow and sadistic.

Blood sprayed the floor fresh and vulgar. The scent of iron clung to the air.

“Do you remember, Keir?” he began. My spine straightened as I listened to the eery, unnerving edge Azriel carried. The blade moved to Keir’s stomach and crept slowly along his skin with each word. “Do you remember what you did to her?” Keir shuddered and my talon twisted, forcing him still as Azriel skimmed the surface of his flesh, waiting. “Because I do. I remember  _ everything _ .”

And then the knife was dipping into skin, had sliced into him high on his abdomen, just deep enough that it hurt beyond the pain of a simple papercut, but shallow enough to avoid muscle and ensure that Keir would be conscious for a very, very long time.

Not that I had plans to let him slip anytime soon.

“I remember every cut....” and the knife dragged a little further dancing to Keir’s growing moans. “Every burn…” A decent inch of skin came away this time and Azriel casually flicked it off the knife and onto the ground. Keir stared horrified as Azriel merely squished it with a step beneath his boot.

And then suddenly - there it was. The first true swipe of anger eeking out of my careful, calculating brother. The blade came down swift, but with no less precision than before, to carve away a long slice of skin over Keir’s chest.

“Every hole, every mark, every scar,” Azriel said. “I remember  _ all _ of them. I counted. Did you know that?”

An inhale of breath had me briefly diverting my attentions to Nesta who had drawn inward on herself as she watched. She was safe, as I’d promised Feyre, but perhaps this wasn’t-

Keir screamed and the mountain seemed to shatter around us. My head snapped back to find his head bobbing side to side, eyes slammed firmly shut as his face dirtied with blood from where Azriel grabbed him. “Open your eyes, Keir,” he said, maintaining a dangerous, lethal calm. “Open them and  _ look _ at what you did to your queen.”

Azriel stood and wiped a finger through the blood lingering on the blade. “I’m going to remind you of each and every wound you inflicted. And then you will die, Keir. You will die and you will know what it is to truly suffer.” He looked to Mor one final time and she nodded her consent, the pair of them sharing a knowing secret the rest of us could not fathom. What it must have been like to find her in the forest cold and alone and dying all those years ago...

Keir had only two seconds to draw breath before Azriel went to work. What ensued was… the most arduous torture I’d ever seen.

For two hours, none of us moved. None of us spoke. None us so much as did anything. Cassian watched with greed in his eyes, a vicious kind of enjoyment that did not delight so much in the act as it did in the pain wrought from Keir.

Nesta often watched him whether she realized it or not. I wasn’t sure how she felt about Azriel’s actions, knowing that the shadows blurring before her mingling with the blood dripping off Azriel’s blade were what her sister had aligned herself with. Perhaps it was for comfort or a reprieve from the violence that she often sought out Cassian’s face. Perhaps it was to judge his own consent of the violence. But even so, in a storm, he was a sea of quiet fortitude anyone could easily trust. As long as he held steady, so too did she.

And Morrigan. My cousin watched it all with electricity humming over her eyes. Each drop of blood spilt across the floor brought a new spark forth from her skin that sent the room crackling in thunder.

After her display of emotion when I’d first told Keir he could have Velaris, I very much doubted she was as at peace as she seemed. But she remained still and silent, the cracklings in her eyes beginning the streak visibly across her skin the longer Azriel pressed on. At the first ripple of them, Nesta jumped and marveled, but was silent when none of us so much as flinched.

Finally, when three hours had passed, Azriel stood and planted a foot on either side of Keir at the hips. Blood pulled around him from every direction. He’d grown still, his screams becoming a hoarse moan here and there. Had I not kept a grip on his mind, he would have faded long, long ago.

Azriel dipped down and a long moment passed between their eyes. “There’s just one more,” Azriel said. “One more wound to count.” I hadn’t realized in his silence proceedings that he’d been counting all this time. A bead of sweat rolled down my neck. “The one I’ll never forget,” Azriel said. His fingers, caked with blood and grime, ran over the patch of exposed muscle at the base of Keir’s stomach. “Perhaps even you remember this one.  _ I _ do.”

My muscles tightened, bracing for what was to come. We  _ all _ remembered the wound of which he spoke.

Where I expected Truth-Teller, Azriel instead went to right calf, to a concealed pocket in the leathers. It was too small to conceal a weapon, even a short knife or dagger. So when Azriel pulled out a long, thin piece of metal, it took me a moment to discern the form. And when I did… oh but I did…

_ “Shit,” _ Cassian breathed. Nesta looked to Cassian with confusion, wondering if his clear understanding might explain the missing link for her, but Cassian was rooted to the spot, his gaze fixed on the nail between Azriel’s fingers.

_ How long had he kept the ruddy thing? _

My mind raced to the point that I nearly forgot to hold Keir conscious.

The nail was a rusted, diseased thing now. Azriel had to have had it magicked for it to still be in tact all these years later. It was the most sadistic, masochistic thing I had ever seen from my brother and I was ashamed to admit that I not only understood perfectly why he’d hoarded it all these centuries, but I approved too.

Whether or not Morrigan did... was another question altogether.

She sat stiffly forward, mouth aghast and eyes wide. The light blinked out of them and suddenly, she was herself again. Not the queen, nor my third in command. Nor even her proper self any longer. But simply the young girl who I’d flown to the camps and watch struggle to know what it was to live and be free for the years to come.

Azriel looked down at Keir and his eyes were lined with red to match the blood on his hands.

“You hammered a nail into her  _ stomach _ ,” he said and for the first time since his work had begun, his voice shook with emotion. A tear slid down Mor’s cheek fresh. How much did she remember? “ _ This _ nail,” Azriel clarified, waving it plainly in front of Keir’s face. Keir, who had gone so hopelessly still. “You wasted the most beautiful gift to ever walk this earth.” He leaned down, his nose not even an inch from Keir’s, and spat in a vicious whisper, “You can be sure I will not make the same mistake.”

And with that, Azriel reached below him, grabbed Keir’s flayed and abused cock carved raw from Truth-Teller, and shoved the nail straight inside it.

Mor didn’t utter a sound as she watched it happen, but her breaths deepened to a quick pace. Even Nesta went flush. A boom of thunder struck above us and the mountain began its quacking.

“Cassian,” I said. My brother looked at me dumbfounded as I came down to meet him. I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Hurry, he doesn’t have much longer - powers or not.”

Cassian nodded, but it was solemn and subdued. I’d never seen him that way since the Incident. Not  _ ever _ .

Together, we waited for Azriel to step away from Keir so we could lift his body. My brother was covered head to toe in blood and shadow and gore.

Mor rose from the throne and approached us, and as she did, Azriel trembled, shying away as if the full weight of what had transpired was catching up to him. He’d done it. He’d really done it.

Mor turned to him and the shadows weaved a shield around his body. She took a step forward and he turned back.

“No,” she said. Azriel stilled.

“Morrigan, you’re gonna have to be quick about this,” I said as Keir slumped between Cassian and I begging for death to take him.

“You will hold him until I am ready,” was all the reply I received as Mor stepped willingly into the blood that trailed after Azriel. It soaked up the long train of her dress filling every fiber until her skirts were drenched with blood from the knees down. Azriel shook his head, his hands held up as though to stop her.

But what really set him off was how easily she slid into his shadows, without fear or loathing of any kind, and brushed them all away.  _ “Azriel,” _ she breathed and I was suddenly uncomfortable watching them, feeling as though I’d intruded on an intimate moment meant for no one else’s eyes but theirs. And yet, they were mesmerizing to see. The light and the dark forged together as Mor gently took Azriel’s face between her hands and held him still. The last shadow cleared.

“May I have your sword?” Mor asked.

Azriel swallowed, and still trembling, reached behind him to remove the length at his back as Cassian had earlier. “My lady,” he said, “you may have whatever you require of me.”

Mor brushed her thumb over his cheek and her hand came away with her father’s blood. She took the sword.

Azriel seemed to exhale into non-existence as she stepped away. As she reached Keir. As she held the blade to his chest. He was already so far gone, but I brought just enough of him back to witness the end.

“With this blade,” Mor said, “I take your breath, I take your blood, and I take your power, by my court and by the stars that reign above us.” Her eyes filled with wetness that molded and blazed into a string of fire. “This I swear.”

The blade slid easily into Keir’s chest and the shadows whispered every last agonizingly slow, quiet beat inside his heart as the mountain above us quaked and Mor fell to the ground in a brilliant flash of white light and a thunderous scream.


	4. Remission

When the smoke cleared, Keir was dead. And Mor was a shell of herself on the floor, Azriel the only one of us who’d managed to stay in tact as he huddled over her.

I groaned and pulled myself upright feeling how my muscles pinched.

_ Nesta _ .

She was gone from the dias. Mor lay on the ground, her clothes ripped and torn as her body filled with light, while I ran up the steps. Nesta crawled from behind the throne, coughing. “Are you alright?” I asked her.

“What the hell do you think?” she asked.

“Morrigan?” Azriel’s voice had me turning back. She was near the breaking point. It would be over soon, but he he had to move. “Morrigan!”

“Get away,” and suddenly, Cassian lunged at Az and pinned him to the ground just in time. Mor’s body stretched wide and the ceiling cracked above us. Lightning rippled from the fissure and poured itself into her, liftinger her high in a cloud of light and thunder. The ground shook.

Nesta gripped my arm and I moved in front of her as the light threatened to blind us. But still we watched, too entranced to look elsewhere. “What’s happening to her?” Nesta asked. “Is she dying?”

“She’s a Darkbringer,” I said. “ _ The _ Darkbringer. Killing her father gives her full access not only to his powers, but her own tenfold. The army answers to her now.”

“That,” Nesta sputtered. “ _ That _ is her power?”

I nodded. And I understood why Nesta Archeron was frightened for only the second time in her life.

Morrigan was not only filled with lightning. She  _ was _ the lightning, the storm, the terrible thunderous darkness that children wept over in their beds at night. And it was to be a weapon at her disposal wherever she went. All she need do was reach out and the light would discern truth from lie, friend from foe, as she fought. Entire battlefields could be brought down with a gift like that, the one Keir had punished her so horribly for forsaking centuries ago.

As the mists brought my cousin back to the earth, she blinked and when her eyes opened, they were filled a solid white color, the pupils and normally brown rings disappearing entirely.

She stared straight ahead and none of us moved, completely swept up by what we had witnessed. The ground around her was cracked wide open and debris littered the chamber. Only magic would hold the mountain now.

“Cassian,” I breathed, and my brother took his time abandoning his appraisal of Mor to see me gesturing to Nesta. All at once, determination overcame him and he was at our side. Leaving Nesta to his care, I approached Mor.

Keir’s body was torn into pieces from the chaos as I passed. I snapped my fingers and what little remained of him, the charred and burned bits, disintegrated into a fine mist left to puddle with the rest on the floor. Mor watched blankly, those white orbs in her eyes conveying nothing.

“Morrigan?” I asked.

“I must away,” was her only reply.

Azriel stood swiftly, but I held my hand up and somehow, he found a will to obey. He looked distraught.

“Go, and return to me when your work is finished.”

Mor moved and her clothes were gone exposing her body beneath fully. Her veins stood out a stark, brilliant blue against the white of her skin, lightening contained within, threatening power with each step. And indeed her feet sparked against the cracked stone floor as she went to the doors beyond the throne, burst them apart with her light, and stepped through.

Azriel’s chest heaved as she left. I gripped his shoulder. “We’ll get her back, Az,” I said. “She’ll be alright now.”

He simply nodded in return, his body starting to tremble in an effort to keep composure and I knew he was on the verge of losing all control. Seeing  _ Azriel _ come unglued - it scared me. “I need-”

“Go.” And without another moment to consider, he turned and flew from the hall.

Cassian brought Nesta down from the dias. She brushed her skirts free of debris and took a great inhale as her eyes narrowed at me under her lashes.

“Are you… how are you?” I asked.

“Do I regret staying to witness that  _ beast _ of yours annihilate her father, you mean.” Cassian looked as though she’d struck him personally at the insult. If she thought Azriel a beast, what did she think of him now? Of his own brutality? Nesta crossed her arms over her chest. “The answer is no, I do not.”

“Then tell me, if you don’t mind… why did you stay?”

Nesta’s gaze did not soften at all as she stared me down, her resolve stronger than her heart. But in her eyes, I saw the quiet pain that must have followed her all her life. I assumed I would never again see it after this moment.

“We were here for mere hours,” Nesta said. “My sister was here for  _ three months _ .” She swallowed dryly and glanced at the puddle of blood in which we stood, allowed it to taint her being. “Now I know.”

Rather than say something, try to puzzle her out further, I merely inclined my head. The mysteries of Feyre’s time Under the Mountain, how she’d kept going, survived such torment, had kept me up at night for months after we’d left, even long after we’d become something of friends to one another. Distantly, I heard the music and let it sink in through my skin and calm my soul.

“I’d like to go back now,” Nesta said, her shoulders sagging. She looked at Cassian, who seemed grateful she’d let him even touch her at this point, and he led her out of the hall. I followed behind and flew with them until we were far enough to touch down and winnow back to the apartment where Feyre was waiting.

My mate jumped from the cushiony seat she had curled up on in the living room as we appeared. “Nesta,” she said, eyes wide.

Nesta paused as she stepped out of my grip from the travel, staring at her sister. Slowly, her chest sank. And then she was gone, marching solemnly up the stairs to her room without another word.

“Nesta, wait-” Feyre looked between Cassian and I and her mouth gaped open. “By the Cauldron,” she said.

I looked down and cursed, snapping my fingers to remove the mayhem from us and went to her. Cassian was already slumped into a seat, a look of exhaustion gracing him at every angle. He sighed into his hands.

“What happened?” Feyre asked.

“It’s a long, long story,” I said.

* * *

Three days went by and not a word of Morrigan’s welfare reached us. And for that, I was blissfully pleased. If any harm truly came to her, then the mountain really would collapse and we’d be fucked. But we weren’t there yet.

Nesta remained in her room. Elain came down periodically for food and vague pleasantries in her haze, letting us know that their sister was  _ okay _ . Cassian was immeasurably patient about the entire matter, but I could see how much he wanted to take that  _ okay _ and shove it up Nesta’s ass until she spilled her heart and soul to him. Moron practically slept at the apartment hoping she’d climb down and clue him in.

Not that I could blame him too much. Mor’s transformation had been… an experience to behold in the least. I’d begun describing it to Feyre, but she’d stopped me partway. “Maybe another time,” she’d told me, preferring instead details of how it would work now that Mor was  _ the _ Darkbringer.

“She’ll train the army, assert her dominance-”

Cassian snorted. “She hardly needs to now.”

“Still,” I said and took a sip of tea as the fourth day came upon us. Cassian sat across from me, Azriel to his right, Feyre on my other side. Azriel hadn’t said a word since walking in that morning. In fact, he’d hardly spoken at all since we’d come back. He wore a simple tunic in place of his leathers and his skin smelled of some kind of chemical I didn’t recognize, but that Nuala and Cerridwen assured me was safe. Still…

My heart was heavy.

I wished Mor were here. She would know if he was alright or not. He’d blown Cassian off when we’d tried to take him aside and debrief everything.

“Once they’re firmly under her command, her powers will start calming down and she can come back. And then it’s just a matter of waiting for Hybern to make his move.”

“Will she be… will she be different?” Feyre asked. Her plate sat mostly untouched.

I picked up a piece of toast and held it up to her lips. With a bit of disdain, she bit. “I’m not sure,” I said. “She’ll be different in some ways, I’m sure. But I’ve never seen  _ the _ Darkbringer go down and a new one take their place. I’ve only heard stories of the transition of power and none were… particularly pleasant.”

Azriel gripped his cup of tea and stared down into the dark depths. His face was drawn, cheeks appearing more hollow than usual. I cleared my throat. “That is to say, I’m sure she’ll still be herself.”

Feyre reached out with a tendril of darkness and brushed against Az’s hand. At once, the shadows dove from his face and sniffed at her offering. Azriel blinked at the meeting and, doing nothing in rebuttal, the shadows blended together, his own now filled with a glimmer of night. “That was very brave, what you did,” Feyre said.

“By my count, you weren’t there,” Azriel replied. Feyre snickered.

A boom sounded overhead. All of Velaris shattered into a brief darkness before faint streaks of lightning re-illuminated the city. Had I not been expecting it, I would have thought the Cauldron itself here to destroy us all in our homes.

I burst out of my seat, but Azriel was at the balcony doors before any of us, shoving them open and running onto the deck. He caught her just as she winnowed into the sky above us and plummeted.

“Morrigan?” he asked, steadying my cousin as he righted her in his arms. “Mor?”

“Holy shit, what a ride,” she said, slapping a hand over her face and pinching the bridge of her nose. Her voice was hoarse, but her eyes - they were brown and full again.

Cassian scoffed. “She’s  _ fine _ .”

Az made to carry her inside, scowling at Cass, but Mor insisted she could walk. That it was residual magic that made her crash landing so shaky. Walk she did, but her skin was still pale and glowing with the bright blue hue of her veins, even if it had dimmed somewhat.

Similar in fashion to the Illyrian fighting leathers, her new uniform was dark and skin tight. But whereas Illyrian leathers were just that - leather - Mor’s new suit was fitted with plates and chains, different adornments carved into the metal that protected and carried magic from the deepest recesses of the court.

“How’d it go?” Feyre asked, hesitating a bit to touch her.

“It was a right royal  _ bitch _ , if I’m honest.” Mor sighed. “But it’s done. The army will fight and…” something akin to grief filled her eyes as she paused, but that was soon forgotten. “Oh my gosh,  _ food! _ Thank the Mother, I’m famished.”

Taking over my seat, Mor inhaled most of the table, filling us in between bites. It seemed the Darkbringers had fallen in line fairly quickly, not that they’d had much of a choice. Mor went over the rosters for much of her time the past three days, organizing and prepping as she went. And harnessing her powers to precision, of course.

“There are hundreds of them ready,” she said, taking a final bite of egg. “Not nearly enough to tip the scales, but it’ll certainly help.”

“That’s good…” I said.

She lifted a brow at me and set the tea she was about to drink down at her plate. “However?”

I leaned over the table. “How are you?”

Mor looked at each one of us. We all waited. “Please quit worrying. I  _ hate _ when you do that. Babies, all of you. Honestly.” Feyre chuckled quietly. “You too, missy,” Mor said and then the faint amusement died off. “I am… fried. Literally. But I feel okay. It’s been a long time since I’ve… felt that.” She turned her hands over one another, tracing the lines of blue down to her wrists.

“What do you need?” Cassian asked and again we waited. Mor sat back with a sigh, her head lolling to the side where she could see the sun coming into its full strength over the morning now that the clouds she’d temporarily brought back with her were clearing.

“I need… a bed.” Her head lolled back to me. “Is it okay if I stay here for the day or night, whatever? I don’t feel like trekking all the way back up to the House. Not… not yet.”

“Of course,” I replied. “It’s whatever you need.” My fingers flinched on the table toward her and she took the excuse to indulge my hand. “Whatever you need, Mor.”

My cousin smiled at me, a hum in her throat, and then stood. “Then I’m off to sleep. Wake me when the war’s over, will you?” She disappeared around the corner out of view taking the first few steps before her head popped back around the wall concealing the stairs. Azriel looked up, his exhaustion matching her own. But Mor’s eyes were kind and inviting. “Aren’t you coming?”

Azriel went still. I think in that moment, we all did.

Feyre bit her lip and Cassian’s fork clattered to his plate.

Relief. Surprise. Or maybe it was just joy that the moment had arrived. Whatever it was, we all watched as Azriel stood and made his way to Mor. “Really?” he asked, swallowing roughly.

_ Oh my gosh, I can hear  _ both _ their hearts beating away _ .

I smiled at Feyre and silently  _ shushed _ her.  _ Let them have their moment. You’re the one who’s been pestering me about it since you got here. _

She rolled her eyes, but wriggled in her seat to get the clearer view.

“Of course,” Mor said and linked her hand with his. She paused as their joined hands rose together as one. “Hmm,” she hummed. Azriel looked terribly mortified of himself.

“What - what is it?” he asked. His back foot dared take a half-step back in retreat.

“Look,” Mor said, tracing a line between where her bright blue veins met his jagged scars. “We match.” And then she was smiling up at him, the warmth in her eyes kindling something fierce and just and  _ right _ between them, just before finally allowing sleep to give way. Mor collapsed against his chest. Azriel scooped her up at once and carried her away. The pair were not to be seen again for some time.

_ “Finally _ ,” Cassian said.

Finally, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed. I know this fic won't be for everyone for a variety of reasons, but if you actually read it and enjoyed it at all, please know that my heart is full and comforted by it. <3


End file.
